METHODICAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does methodical mean? 

• METHODICAL (adjective)
  The adjective METHODICAL has 1 sense:

1. characterized by method and orderliness

  Familiarity information: METHODICAL used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• METHODICAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Characterized by method and orderliness

Context example:

a methodical scholar

Similar:

organized (methodical and efficient in arrangement or function)

Derivation:

method (a way of doing something, especially a systematic way; implies an orderly logical arrangement (usually in steps))

methodicalness (the quality of appreciating method and system)

 Context examples 

I am a methodical man, you see, and you never know what turn events might take afterwards.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He went over to the door, and turning the lock he examined it in his methodical way.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A methodical examination or review of a condition or situation.

(Audit, NCI Thesaurus)

“No doubt Baynes, with his methodical mind, has already adopted some similar plan.”

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Mrs. Weston had been shewing them all to him, and now he would shew them all to Emma;—fortunate in having no other resemblance to a child, than in a total want of taste for what he saw, for he was slow, constant, and methodical.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Her aunt was no very methodical narrator, but with the help of some letters to and from Sir Thomas, and what she already knew herself, and could reasonably combine, she was soon able to understand quite as much as she wished of the circumstances attending the story.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

He is a very methodical person, and I did not desire you to start before six, because I was well aware that you would not find him in his study.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

An anomaly which often struck me in the character of my friend Sherlock Holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in his personal habits one of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellow-lodger to distraction.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He is steady and methodical.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Methodical, or well arranged, or very well delivered, it could not be expected to be; but it contained, when separated from all the feebleness and tautology of the narration, a substance to sink her spirit—especially with the corroborating circumstances, which her own memory brought in favour of Mr. Knightley's most improved opinion of Harriet.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)